Extra Credit

Not “How” but “Who”

Last week we began a study of what it means to be “truly human.” And we began with the truly human one: Jesus of Nazareth. It is not the case that Adam came first and then, when things went wrong, God sent his Son to be born of a virgin as a reaction to Adam’s sin. This typical way of thinking makes it so that Jesus is made in Adam’s image and—to caricature a bit—turns Jesus into Plan B.

Paul insists in Romans 5 that Adam is made in the image of Christ. In other words, Jesus comes first. This is hard for us to think. We know that Jesus is both truly God and truly human, but in order to make this all “fit” we split him in two (sometimes suggesting he is two persons: the eternal Son of God and then Jesus of Nazareth).1

The problem with this way of thinking is that it begins with the two natures of Christ (human and divine), seeing them in some sort of competition and tension, and then tries to resolve the tension by some sort of math equation.

Hopefully you can already see the issue with doing theology this way around. This is to start with our own abstract concepts (humanity and divinity), rather than with the concrete person of Jesus.

In other words, we think we know what it means to be God and we think we know what it means to be human and then we try to say Jesus is both those things. This then creates problems for us to solve: How can the uncreated one be created? How can the infinite one be in time? How can the first one come in the middle? How can God die on the cross?

But as Dietrich Bonhoeffer points out in his Christology lectures, the first question of theology has to be “Who” not “How?”2

Rather than starting with the seemingly incommensurable natures of Christ (human and divine) and then asking the question, “How do these fit together?” We must start with the concrete person of Jesus Christ. We must ask, “Who?”

We need to start with Jesus to know God and to know ourselves. This one—this person—is simultaneously God and Us.

Truly Human Being

To be truly human—to be human in the way that God is human—we must be fashioned into the image of Jesus, who comes before Adam. To become truly human is to move from Adam to Christ. We’ve got the “who” questioned straightened away. Now we can ask the “how” question. How do we move from Adam to Christ?3

Ignatius of Antioch, a first century bishop who died around AD 108, wrote a letter to the Roman Christians while he was under arrest and on his way to being martyred. What he says is striking. His primary plea to the Christians in Rome is that they will not try to keep him from being martyred.

St. Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Romans:

“It is better for me to die in Christ Jesus than to be king over the ends of the earth. I seek him who died for our sake. I desire him who rose for us. Birth-pangs are upon me. Suffer me, my brethren; hinder me not from living, do not wish me to die…Suffer me to receive the pure light; when I shall have arrived there, I will be a human being [anthropos], suffer me to follow the example of the passion of my God.”4

“Birth-pangs” are upon him as he is coming to his death. His death is actually his birth. “Hinder me not from living” is Ignatius’s way of saying “Don’t stop me from dying.” Only in his death will he truly come alive. Life and death have been completely reversed here. “When I shall have arrived there, I will be a human being.” He’s not yet truly human. He is “in Adam” now, but he longs to be made into the image of Christ through his death. Only then will he be “a human being.”

In other words, for Ignatius, to be put to death in the way Jesus was is to become a true human being.

Two Births

The movement Ignatius shows us is a movement from Adam to Christ through death and this is what it means to become truly human. But he isn’t making this up for himself. This is what Scripture explicitly tells us.

In John 3, Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night. Jesus tells him that he will only be able to see the kingdom if he is “born from above.” Nicodemus asks how someone can be born again once they are old. Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit” (John 3:5—8).

Jesus is talking about two different births: one from above and one from below. Yes, Nicodemus, you are born from Adam—from below—but to truly live, to truly be made into the image of God, you must be born from above—born of the Spirit.

Paul picks up this same theme in 1 Corinthians 15:35—49:

35 But some one will ask, "How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?" 36 You foolish man! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies…42 So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. 43 It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. 44 It is sown an animated body [soma psychikon], it is raised a spiritual body [soma pneumatikon]. If there is an animated body, there is also a spiritual body. 45 Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living soul; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. 46 But it is not the spiritual which is first but the animated, and then the spiritual. 47 The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. 48 As was the man of dust, so are those who are of the dust; and as is the man of heaven, so are those who are of heaven. 49 Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.”

The movement here, as John Behr points out, is from Adam to Christ, from being an a body animated by breath (psyche) to a body made alive by the Spirit (pneuma). Adam has breath in his lungs, but that breath expires. Jesus is the Second Adam who—precisely by letting his breath expire—is raised a life-giving Spirit.

These are the two births Jesus spoke of to Nicodemus. The first one is a false beginning—in Adam. But the second is the true beginning of all that is created—in Christ.

Adam—Christ.

Breath—Spirit.

Psyche—Pneuma.

The Lord Kills and Makes Alive

Scripture everywhere bears witness to this movement from breath to Spirit.

Psalm 104:29–30 “When you take away their breath, they die and return to the dust; when you send forth your Spirit and they will be created.”

We have to notice the order. We often read a text like this and think: “Yes, of course. God is the creator so he gives us our breath and then he takes it away whenever he sees fit.” But the text doesn’t say that. It says that he takes away their breath first and then sends forth his Spirit and they will be created.

Many have noticed that Scripture speaks this way. Especially in a text like Deuteronomy 32:39, “I kill and make alive.” Once again the order is key. It is the killing that leads to the living. It is crucifixion and resurrection.

Origen: “In Scripture we always note that those acts which are ‘unpleasant-seeming,’ as I will name them, are listed first, then those acts which seem gladdening are mentioned second.' I will kill and I will make alive' [Deut 32.39]. He did not say, 'I will make alive' and then 'I will kill.' For it is impossible that what God has made to live would be taken away by himself or by anyone else. But, 'I will kill and I will make alive.' Whom will I kill? Paul the traitor, Paul the persecutor. 'And I will make alive' so that he becomes 'Paul the Apostle of Jesus Christ.’"5

Maximus the Confessor (on God telling Jonah that he will destroy the city of Nineveh): “God in truth both destroys and saves the same city…”6

Martin Luther: “Thus when God makes alive he does it by killing…when he takes into heaven he does it by sending to hell.”7

Karl Barth: “In Scripture we do not find the Law alongside the Gospel but in the Gospel, and therefore the holiness of God is not side by side with but in His grace, and His wrath is not separate from but in His love.”8

This is the secret of God’s wrath: it is not something separate from his love, but is always found in his love. As George Macdonald memorably put it, God’s wrath is nothing but the furthest reaches of God’s love as we resist it.

God’s wrath is not like our wrath. Our wrath aims to kill and destroy, but God’s wrath aims to make alive.

Origen points out that in Galatians 5 “wrath” is not a fruit of the Spirit, but a work of the flesh! But God is Spirit and not flesh. So, when Scripture talks about God’s “wrath” it cannot mean what it means as a work of the flesh.

The wrath of God makes alive. Or, put otherwise, the wrath of God are “the hands of God” that Adam never escapes at any time in his life. The molding and and the shaping are the wrath, which lead us to being born “from above.” It is the wrath of God that takes away our breath in order that he might fill our lungs with his own Spirit so that we might become “life-giving spirits” just as he is.

The Gospel of John tells us that when Jesus breathed his last from the cross he handed over his spirit. But the Greek is really specific: “He handed over the Spirit.”

Jesus breathing his last from the cross is his breathing the breath of life into all things. He is the Life-Giving Spirit.

But he has to breathe his last. He must let go of his breath, and let the old Adam die. Adam must have his breath taken away—crucifixion. But in letting go of his breath he sends forth the Spirit—resurrection.

This is not so much “new” creation or “re-creation” as it is true creation. This was always what Genesis meant when it said that God formed Adam from the dust of the ground and breathed the breath of life into him. At the cross we are witnessing God’s act of true creation.

Martin Luther said that God created us in order to redeem us. That’s true. But we can be even more precise. God creates us by redeeming us.

But it is only in death that we find life. It is only when you let him take away your breath that you can become clay in his hands and be truly created.